


Untitled Essay #13

by theragingstorm



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU
Genre: Character Study, Duke is canonically a writer why does everyone forget that, Essay format, Family, Gen, Humor, Introspection, Platonic Relationships, pick-and-choose canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-08
Updated: 2018-09-08
Packaged: 2019-07-08 15:32:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15933332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theragingstorm/pseuds/theragingstorm
Summary: Duke reflects on the people in his new family, and on himself.





	Untitled Essay #13

**Author's Note:**

> My first Duke-centric fic, and I’m trying a new kind of format in the meantime...though someone should probably go tell me to work on my preexisting fics instead.

(I will never publish this)

 

Tomorrow is my six-month anniversary.

Not of a relationship — although it _has_ given me some new relationships. Tomorrow is the six-month anniversary of the day I moved into Wayne Manor.

In the last six months, I’ve been stabbed, shot, blown up, gassed, involved in multiple heroic teams, poisoned, almost eaten, been told my dad isn’t my real dad, beaten up, trained harder than I’ve ever trained, and every single day I eat my meals in a dining room the size of my entire childhood apartment.

Eventful? Nope. This is a pretty average few months for superheroes, apparently.

Considering how many issues they have, how violent their lives are, how they really didn’t have any reason to trust me or take me in, they accepted me into their fold pretty quickly. Which does seem a little strange, if you think about it — strange even by their standards. I don’t have my parents anymore, I was regularly involved in fights and breaking the law, but before that, aside from manifesting meta powers, most of my life was pretty average. I made good grades, went to movies, traded cards, played RPGs with my friends, even started writing for fun. I had parents for most of that, and they are still my parents. I’ve already started thinking of the other kids as siblings, and I care about and respect him a lot, but I don’t think I’ll ever call Bruce “dad.” I have enough dads already, to be honest.

What kind of people accept a kid like me as one of their own?

To most of Gotham, they’re pretty mysterious. But when you get to know them...

Weirdly enough, the person I trust most out of all of them is the one I know the least about: Alfred. I know a lot about the others now, but I’m still figuring out bits from his backstory all the time. He was a Shakespearean actor, he was in British Special Forces, he was this and that, and I _still_ don’t know how old he really is...But you don’t really need to know _about_ Alfred to know him. He’s seen more than most people could handle. He’s lost almost all of the people he loves at at least one point. He’s the one always waiting for us to come back bleeding, and instead of crying when he sees us, he scolds us for being stupid and for dripping blood on the carpet. Stiff upper lip, I suppose. But he’s also the one who’s always there with tea and good food and conversation, and he never hesitates to lift us up when we’re down, which is often. That’s how he is in every way: always there. We would’ve all been dead long ago without Alfred.

Bruce would’ve especially been dead long ago. He has no self-preservation instinct at all, and he abides so strictly by his own personal rules, expecting everyone else to and to blindly trust him, it’s a miracle he hasn’t been killed either by all his enemies or, more likely, by friendly fire. All his sidekicks and ex-sidekicks have good reason to resent him, and actually, that includes me too. What’s more, he’s experienced so much pain, he lets himself be ruled so much by that pain so that he has something to drive him, I don’t know how he handles it. It cannot possibly be a healthy coping mechanism, but that’s the one he’s been using for about twenty years. With all that pain, you wouldn’t think he has room for love, but he loves more than almost anyone else I’ve ever met. He loves us all. He loves his city. He stubbornly believes there’s inherent good and worth in everyone and everything. That’s kind of a big ego boost for a bunch of orphaned minority kids, and yeah, he was one of the first to see potential worth in a lot of us — once he got over their tendency to disobey him. Does he hate that when it happens...but does he get proud of us when we succeed. Or so I’m told. I love him too, but it’s really hard to read him.

Speaking of orphan minority kids, the first of those was, of course, Dick. Dick’s kind of a study in contrasts. He’s the first to trust people, and he’s undyingly loyal to the people he loves. At the same time, he’s got a hell of a temper, he hates being lied to, he’s really protective of everyone, which ties into the temper, and when he’s angry he can be a real dick — pun intended. He wears all his kindness and optimism on his sleeve, and he’s got a lot of both, but he bottles up his hurt and sadness so as not to inconvenience anyone, and so it all just bursts out of him at his lowest points. He’s also inspirational to me. Like me, he was a high-achieving kid of color with a good childhood who lost his parents, who rebels and gets into trouble and who everyone expected to fail. But instead of falling, he soared to become everyone’s heart. The community of superheroes all care about and trust him implicitly. We all need Dick Grayson. And so he give us hope.

Building on that analogy, if Dick is our heart, then Barbara is our head. Frankly, she terrifies me. She’s literally got everyone and everything at her fingertips, we all need her for information and assistance at every turn. Her intelligence is only matched by her resilience, and nobody can tell her what to do — although she tells us what to do all the time. So naturally, she can be a little manipulative, she can be a little cruel, but you wouldn’t know that she’s got a lot of hidden vulnerability, and what’s more, she cares about everyone, hero and civilian alike. She’s got everyone from ARGUS to the Doom Patrol owing her a favor, and she still goes out of her way to take care of our family, of women and kids and other disabled people. Sure, she’s intimidating, but if you can get past that...she’s still intimidating, but she’s also the first you’ll be going to for anything, especially consideration and stability and comfort.

Jason is a lot to get used to as well. He’s rude and violent and acts callous and he’s brimming with hurt and he’s wanted in three states and five other countries. You wouldn’t expect him to also be smart and brave and compassionate. He always does what he believes is right, even at his own cost. Although he does have a frustrating habit of not showing his good side for a long while, even if he likes you, and he will tell you if he likes you. That being said, if he does like you, you can’t help but like him back, even if you don’t agree with him. He’s a rebel, he’s got a good heart, you can see he rose up from and through a lot of bad crap. He makes a lot of fair points about reality not always being compatible with morality. Now if only we could deal with the minor issue that is his being a mass murderer...

I respect the hell out of Cass. First of all, she’s hands down the best combat fighter in the whole family, better than even Bruce. Her life makes all our lives look like picnics, but she’s probably got the best heart of us all. She’s also, I think, the most enigmatic of us kids, but also the least complicated. She has her curiosity about everyday things, and a few everyday interests — don’t get her started on television — but most of the time she all but lives to serve justice, to fight the good fight. She’s obviously not very social, and not much of a conversationalist, but when she does love someone, the way she loves us, her family, they have her for life. We _are_ her life, and sometimes I’m not sure whether that’s incredibly touching, or incredibly frightening. Nobody does dedication like Cass.

Steph, for her part, is made up of seventy percent righteous anger and hunger for justice at all times, ten percent going with her gut instinct to make all her decisions, and twenty percent stubbornness. She respects and admires other women, hates her father, and slapped Batman right in the face once. Despite all that, at the same time, she really wants to be loved and respected for who she is. She came from a bad place, and I will admit she’s made a lot of not-well-thought-out decisions _and_ been treated really unfairly, but she always bounces back. She’s always got hope and determination to spare, and I can’t help but admire her for it. She is more than worth having around, and especially more than worth appreciating. That being said, if she has anything that could even possibly be a tool or weapon in her hand, it’s wise to stay at least ten feet away at all times.

Tim is a very strange person, mainly because it’s easy to want to hug and slap him at the same time. He’s almost entirely selfless, but he’s terrible with emotions and he can be very cold both when he’s working and when he’s upset. His self-worth hinges on how well he performs at his role as a crime-fighter, and his mental state in general hinges on how the people he loves are doing and how they see him. He’s shy and self-deprecating and geeky (almost as geeky as yours truly), but woe betide anyone who fights him: it’s no small achievement to take down Ra’s al Ghul himself. Even when he hurts or complains, he’s kind and he tries, he loves his friends and family unconditionally, and he sees the good points in them at all times, which can also be to his own detriment. Though funnily enough, the exact opposite used to be true with Damian.

You can’t help but get the worst impression from Damian the first time you meet him. He’s arrogant, petulant, and bullheaded on his best days. He’s constantly convinced he’s right, and has to be actively proved otherwise. It’s hard to get a genuine compliment out of him about anything. What you have to remind yourself is...he’s a literal child, and a formerly abused one at that. He, like Cass, is constantly working to be better than where he came from, to be and do good. Not only that, but it’s working. Damian loves, and he loves hard, and he’s very protective of the people (and animals) he cares about. Like I said, it’s easy to get the worst impression at first, but if you stick around, if you put in the effort, Damian really does turn out to be worth it.

This is the family I chose to ally myself with, to live with, to fight alongside.

So where do I fit in with these people? What makes me stand out?

I suppose I’m a bridge. I fight in the daytime, my friends are pretty distanced from the general hero community, I’m the only metahuman, and I lived the longest as a normal civilian. I connect to the family with my ideals, with how I chose to fight for others, and of course, with the prerequisite dose of trauma and loss. But I connect to the rest of Gotham as well.

I follow the rules when they’re laid by someone I trust and respect, and more importantly, when they’re fair and indiscriminate. I don’t like to cause trouble for no reason. I’m often afraid and unsure. I have a sense of self-preservation and my own mortality that my new family _severely_ lacks.

But at the same time, I do love that adrenaline rush. I love the feeling of fighting bad guys, of knowing that I’m doing something good. I will cause trouble if I think it’s worth it. I will break the rules if the rules are wrong. And being afraid and unsure hasn’t stopped me yet, has it?

I may be new. I may not have died or suffered a debilitating injury yet — another prerequisite, which is still really disturbing. I still may think that what they think is normal is often really horrifying. I would definitely take back being partially chewed by a sewer-dwelling crocodile man, being fear-gassed by a guy with a burlap sack on his face, and almost being turned into a Dollotron _twice_.

But would I take back these people? Getting to know them? My time fighting by their their side?

No.

I wouldn’t.

It’s almost been six months of pretty average crimefighting. Here’s to many more.

And possibly another world-ending event in the meantime. Because apparently that’s pretty average too.

 

-D.T.


End file.
